Introduction

Getting Started

Lesson Plans

Curriculum Connections

Images

Websites for further study

Bibliography
 

Document Based Question

Colonial Economy

7th and 8th-grade students

Directions:

  • Carefully read the question.  Brainstorm about what you already know about this topic.  How would you answer this question if you had no documents?
  • Read each document carefully and take notes about each document and object.
  • Use your knowledge of social studies and the information in the documents and objects to formulate a thesis that answers the question.
  • Use examples from the documents to support your thesis.
  • Write a well-organized and relevant essay that answers the question.

Documents or Materials to Use:

  1. Where does Silver Come From? map from Discover Silver! The Jerome and Rita Gans Collection of English Silver, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,©1998 (in slide set)
  2. Currency Vocabulary
  3. Images (below)

Image #2:

John Singleton Copley
American, 1737-1815
Nathaniel Hurd, ca. 1765
Oil on canvas, 30 3/8 x 25 3/8”

Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd from the Cleveland Museum of Art

Image #3:

John Singleton Copley
American, 1737-1815
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mifflin (Sarah Morris), 1773
Oil on ticking, 60 ½ x 48”

Philadelphia Museum

Image #5:

Ralph Earl
American, 1751-1801
Mary Smith Booth, 1790
Oil on canvas, 38 x 31”

Memorial Art Gallery Marion Stratton Gould Fund, 57.13

Image #23:

Nathaniel Hurd
American, 1729/30-1777
Table of Conversions
Engraving

American Antiquarian Society

Image #24:

Thomas Gainsborough
British, 1727-1788
Man with Book Seated in a Landscape, ca. 1753
Oil on canvas, 24 x 20”

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Fred W. Geib, 75.115

Image #25:

Sir Joshua Reynolds
English, 1723-1792
Portrait of Miss Hoare, 1782
Oil on canvas, 36 3/16 x 28”

George Eastman Collection of the University of Rochester, 77.1

Historical Context:

By the late 18th Century, Boston was an international harbor and merchants traded with many countries in Europe and around the world. The people of Boston were wealthy enough to import and enjoy products from all over the world.

Question:

What evidence can you find to support this view of a global economy in colonial Boston?